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00:21:30
00:26:05
00:21:30
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{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
so I said, "What's the matter with these people?" They were mostly all Italians.
[00:21:34]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
The next morning when I went in, I said, "Good morning," and I said, "Listen."
[00:21:40]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I said, "I didn't sleep with nobody in this place last night,"
[00:21:45]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
"and I was taught to say 'Good morning' in the morning." And I said, "I was raised with Italians; I slept in their bed, I drank their wine."
[00:21:53]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I said, "They had a garden. My mother and father could go over there and get anything in their garden, and we have a garden, and we go get them."
[00:22:00]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
"If Mrs. Dominic had a baby, I would go there and take care of her, help her wash and take care of her other children, and didn't get a penny."
[00:22:10]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I said, "We were raised like that." I said, "We were raised to to be-- do onto others as you wish others to do onto you."
[00:22:19]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mm
[00:22:20]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I said, "But these people today, oh god, Jesus, everybody's trying to do you." [[laughter]]
[00:22:28]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Now what did you do for entertainment?
[00:22:30]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
When I came here?
[00:22:32]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Yeah, before you had children.

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
When I came-
[00:22:34]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Before I got married?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mhm.
[00:22:36]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
When I came down here to, uh-- from Emporium ,I brought my father down from Emporium, he was blind, and, uh, my Bill, took him back.
[00:22:47]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Because when I got to New York and I seen there was colored boys, we didn't have no only two colored boys in our home town, and they were older.
[00:22:57]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And when I got here to New York and seen there was colored boys, well, pshaw, I had a fit. I didn't wanna go back to Emporium, and there was no-- You couldn't go
[00:23:06]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
at night time. Go Sunday afternoon to the houses and sing, and uh,
[00:23:14]

[speaker]:I had a friend here name was uh, her last name was Green,
[00:23:17]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and she would play the piano. We go Sunday afternoon and sing, and her mother would always give us jello or cut up peaches and cream,
[00:23:26].

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and uh we'd go there and sing after Sunday school. Sunday school was in the modern Brown Memorial Church,
[00:23:36]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
the big church that's downtown on Washington Avenue,
[00:23:40]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
what started in a store front on Fulton Street, and we'd go in the Sunday School,
[00:23:50]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and after Sunday school we'd come out and we'd go to the ice cream parlor on the corner and get ice cream soda
[00:23:58]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
with whip cream and cherries for 10 cents,
[00:24:02]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
then we'd go from there; the bunch of us that was in Sunday School, maybe about, my cousins in there, maybe it was about eight more of us,
[00:24:12]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
we'd go there, and we'd go to my cousin Florence's house and sit on the stoop and sing hymns.
[00:24:20]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
We didn't know any other kind of songs to sing, [[laughter]] cause we'd been to Sunday School,
[00:24:27]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and ,uh, it was a different life altogether.
[00:24:31]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Did the church have any influence in terms of your not going to the movies?
[00:24:38]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
In New York?
[00:24:39]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
How did the church feel about entertainment; movies?

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
[[Cross talk]] The church gave,
[00:24:46]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
uh, shows. They used to call them minstrels, and the people in the church would act on the stage,
[00:24:57]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and they'd play the piano, and they'd sing, and maybe a little dancing; not too much dancing; more singing and playing the piano.
[00:25:06]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And they had shows, dramatized shows, in the church that would be have maybe once a month to help the church raise money,
[00:25:15]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and I think they charged something like 25 cents or 50 cents because there was no money; the people had no money; we made no money.
[00:25:23]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
When I went to work in 1929, I think it was, at A&S, I made 50 cents an hour.
[00:25:31]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
50 cents an hour, and worked 40 hours a week, and that's no money,
[00:25:38]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
cause the kids today are getting out here making good money.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Yeah, well, I mean 20-- 20-- 20 cents-- 50 cents--
[00:25:46]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
[[Cross talk]] 50 cents--

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
cents an hour. I mean, it was a job.
[00:25:49]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
50 cents is no money.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[Cross talk]]
I mean, it was no money, but--
[00:25:52]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
a lot of people were out of work.
[00:25:54]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Yeah, a lot of people were out of work, and it was a different-- we had a different life altogether.
[00:26:00]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Our life was nothing like the life that they have today; nothing.
[00:26:03]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
[[side conversation]] What are you doing, Betty?
[00:26:05]

{SPEAKER name="Betty"
I'm lookin for--
[00:26:06]


Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-28 16:44:05 PLEASE READ INSTRUCTIONS WHICH TELL YOU HOW TO PUT IN SPEAKERS AND HOW TO BREAK DOWN A LONG DIALOGUE, AND PUT IN TIME STAMPS. THESE ARE IMPORTANT!! THANK YOU FOR TRANSCRIBING WHAT YOU DID.